Bell South Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Bell South - Essay Example This is necessary if companies choose to offer various broadband packages and dial up services. In order to prepare for the new service offerings, Bell South laid off 1,500 managers in 2005. Early in 2006 it merged with AT&T and began realignment of its corporate structure. Positions included in the layoff were in staff support functions. Typically this might include human resource, technical and other ‘behind the scenes’ positions. The company states that the layoff was necessary for it to compete in the broadband market, claiming â€Å"the workforce reductions to save the company $175 million annually† (Duffy, 2005). With roughly 2.5% fewer employees, managers might have been required to reassign those tasks to other employees. Options might be to add one or two additional tasks to full time employees or to increase part time employee hours a bit. An entirely different approach would be to require employees to perform tasks for themselves that support personnel previously performed. Performing support tasks for oneself could require special training. It might also require current services to be streamlined. Bell South has reorganized its corporate structure by separating Residential Markets and Business Markets. Residential markets include small business and residential customers. Customer service, marketing, sales and product development within each unit now work together to provide customer oriented service more quickly. Bell South maintains that such restructuring should â€Å"streamline the process for delivering customer solutions† (PR Newswire, 2006).